Hi, all ~

I know this has been talked about many, many times. However, I couldn't find the post that I was thinking about and thought that I would post yet again about it. Less sweet buttercream - I still need the crusting part of it but even when I make it with 1/2 butter, 1/2 crisco with a touch of salt, it is still tooooooo sweet. I have tried the french buttercream from this site but had a hard time with it being too grainy and it really doesn't crust. Do I remember correctly that adding some flour to the bc helps with the sweetness????

Thanks for your help and forgive me...
Julie

Yes, try adding 1 Tbs flour to six cups of crusting BC... and add 1 tsp salt as well, these will both help cut the sweetness.

unfortunately, there's no great way to cut out much of the sweetness in crusting BC, since the main ingredient is sugar.

Thanks, Nati, but no, it's actually the one that is made from cooked cream and flour.

Julie

There is a recipe posted in the recipe section for Baker's Buttercream that calls for flour, although I haven't tried it. Also, there is the Whipped Cream Buttercream that is a 2 step recipe with meringue powder. I made it today and it is much less sweet. I haven't put it on the cake yet, so I can't tell you how it works for smoothing. I was told it is vry nice to work with. Hope this helps.

Cindy

Hi,
If I my suggest, dont put any salt in your Butter cream, not then I am an expert but I know one thing for sure, small amounts of salt in any kind of sweets just enhance sweetness even more. I suggest you to put some pure fresh lemon juice on the end. Start adding little by little and taste in between, for each 1kg of Butter cream you would go for not more then ½ up to whole medium lemon without any significant change to texture or taste. Just make sure you are adding little by little and use ordinary lemon, not an extract. You can still add any other flavour if you wish.
Good luck!
Stefi

im think that i agree on with the last post .....i use unsalted butter and dont addd any salt and my butter cream is not that sweet i also add the flour but it seem that i add more than 1tsp .......

my recipe is

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup crisco
3 tsp of flavoring of your choice i use 1 butter extract, 1 vanilla and 1 almond

cream until light and fluffy then add

1 1/2 lbs powder suger about just add about 3/4 of the 2lb bag
1/8 cup of flour

add sugar and flour a little at a time until well blended and stiff peaks form

Thanks! I will definitely try the lemon juice and your recipe, lastingmoments. A question re: the lemon juice, do I need to add less liquid because of the addition of the lemon juice?

Thanks, everyone!

Julie

Lemon juice will work and it will also help to make your buttercream appear even whiter. This being said it can also affect any colours you may add to it. I ran into this problem a few weeks ago when my purple kept turning blue no matter if it was Wilton or Americolor. The acid in the juice will adversely affect some of the pigments.

ugh!

I know, it's frustrating isn't it? Thanks to CakePrincess we were able to figure out what was happening. Let's face it, our standard buttercream is fat (shortening and/or butter) and powdered sugar.....it's gonna be sweet! I have had numerous people say the icing is too sweet and now I beat them to it and say the icing will be sweet and not like the grocery store stuff so be prepared. Seems to be working.......

If you add lemon juice first, and any coloring later that can help with determine true color, I suggest you to take small amount of ready Butter cream with lemon and try to color it separately. That way you will see are you happy with color or not. In most cases it will be fine. Alternatively you can always use that cream when white color is desired or with any other color where it work well.
Other thing which work well to reduce sweetness is to add some Vodka to Butter cream. Just make sure your customers don't mind that!